Fourteen Years AFTER Bernanke Defined The U.S. Dollar As Worthless

History can be a cruel mistress – at least when one is able to find it via Google’s increasingly “forgetful” search engine. Who was it that made the following remark, on November 21, 2002 ?

“Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply.” [emphasis mine]

Here is a hint for regular readers. It’s the same person responsible for the chart below.

U.S. Dollar

That’s right, B.S. Bernanke. The same Federal Reserve Governor who stated that the U.S. dollar can only have value as long as it is strictly limited in supply quintupled the supply of U.S. dollars in less than five years as Chairman of the Federal Reserve: the Bernanke Helicopter Drop.

Strictly limited in supply.

Did Benjamin Shalom Bernanke even understand those words, either when he first uttered them 14 years ago, or six years later when he began hyperinflating the supply of U.S. dollars? As anyone with a sophisticated understanding of mathematics knows, the chart above is the mathematical representation of the phrase “out of control”.

As a chart of the money supply of a major currency, the message above could not possibly be clearer. This is a one-way trip to worthlessness, an illustration of a hyperinflation-in-progress. However, the quoted sentence above is not when Bernanke defined the U.S. dollar as being worthless. Bernanke did this in the sentence immediately following, in what could be the most incongruous two sentences ever uttered in sequence.

…But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost . [emphasis mine]

The first quotation is utterly shocking in that it was made by the same person who would quickly become the least-responsible Chairman of the Federal Reserve in its 104 year history, in terms of not strictly limiting the supply of dollars.

The second quotation is even more shocking, but for an entirely different reason. It is so shocking because it is certain that Bernanke did not understand his own words, or he would have never advertised the worthlessness of the dollar.

As an elementary proposition of logic, anything that can be produced in infinite quantities and at zero cost must be worthless. Why? Because if this infinitely abundant, free commodity was not worthless, one could literally use that infinitely abundant commodity to buy every asset on the planet. No matter how microscopic the unit value of the infinitely abundant (free) commodity, its total supply would represent infinite wealth – more than enough to purchase every asset on the planet.

This is why, as a basic principle of economics, all fiat currencies must be worthless. They can be created in infinite supply, at zero cost. It is (not surprisingly) why every fiat currency ever created has plunged to worthlessness, or been removed from circulation before that final death-spiral could occur.

Worthless by definition.

Ponder those words. Now ponder that one of the premier authorities for this proposition of logic/economics is a former Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Newer readers always respond to such logic with the same retort.

If the U.S. dollar is worthless, why has its exchange rate risen (dramatically) versus other fiat currencies?

The facetious reply to that question is that 1,000,000 X 0 is still equal to zero. Saying that one (worthless) fiat currency is “more valuable” than another (worthless) fiat currency brings to mind the old joke about the man who jumps off the roof of a 100-storey building.

A man jumps off of the roof of a 100-storey building. As he sails past an open window on the 50 th floor, someone sitting in an office inside hears him exclaim, “so far, so good.”

How does this joke relate to the world of worthless fiat currencies? Picture two men jumping off of a 100-storey building, with one man standing on the shoulders of the other. What is the only real difference between the two men? One goes “splat” slightly sooner than the other.

This is what the “high value” of the U.S. dollar really means: splat – a little bit later.

However, there is a much more serious rebuttal to that previous question: currency manipulation . Western Big Banks have been convicted of serially manipulating all of the world’s currencies, going back to at least 2008. Look again at the chart above and see if that date strikes a familiar chord.

Since 2008; these convicted currency manipulators have (primarily) manipulated the U.S. dollar higher, and manipulated all other currencies lower. That’s not a “theory”, that’s a fact, verified by a criminal conviction.

This is the world of fiat currencies, confirmed by 1,000 years of history, confirmed by an inadvertent admission from no less than the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. It is not only the U.S. dollar which is worthless. All of these Western fiat currencies are worthless, because they have all been conjured into existence in grossly excessive (i.e. reckless) quantities. But if we were to rank all of this worthless paper, the U.S. dollar would rank at the bottom of the heap, debauched to an even greater extreme than all the rest of this banker paper.

It is a mere 46 years since Paul Volcker assassinated the last vestige of our gold standard. Regular readers understand the significance of this as well.

“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to prevent the confiscation of savings through inflation.”

It is an infamous quotation from another Chairman of the Federal Reserve, but a confession which was uttered by Greenspan before he had the slightest understanding of who would “confiscate” all our savings (i.e. steal all of our wealth).

In 1971; the U.S. dollar was still relatively fully valued. By implication, so were other major currencies, since their value was a direct derivative of the value of the dollar. Forty-six years later; the U.S. dollar is worthless, meaning that the entire supply of U.S. dollars no longer holds any wealth. Forty-six years later; none of these Western currencies hold any wealth.

To where did all that stolen wealth disappear? Into the pockets of the Criminals in control of the U.S. printing press – as well as the other printing presses of the Western world. Theft by money-printing. Regular readers also know the identity of those Criminals .

Give me control of a nation’s money, and I care not who makes its laws.

– Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744 – 1812)

One of these criminals (Greenspan) warned us what would be done to us if we were ever foolish enough (and weak enough) to allow our governments and their central bank overlords to rob us of our gold standard. Another one of these Criminals (Bernanke) accidentally told us what was being done to us, shortly before the crime was finally completed.

What is the lesson to be learned from these events? It is the same lesson explained to readers in a recent commentary , entitled The Secret of Wealth Preservation .

Our currencies are already worthless. Our wealth has already been stolen. But like a collection of cheap magicians, these convicted currency manipulators have created the illusion of value in